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Saturday 29 August 2015

Adventure, July 1952 - review

Review of one of the last issues of Adventure, this issue was quite undistinguished and I just happened to pick it because it was at the top of the pile. Ratings for each story at the end on a 5 point scale.

Adventure - July, 1952
Adventure - July, 1952

Cover by Monroe Eisenberg, the cover has nothing to do with any story inside as far as I can make out.

Saturday 22 August 2015

Pulp Artist's site: Gloria Stoll Karn

She has done covers for Black Mask, Dime Mystery, Detective Tales, and New Detective. Also Rangeland Romances, All-Story Love, New Love, Love Book, Love Short Stories, Love Novels, Romance, and Thrilling Love magazines.

In addition, she did interior illustrations for Argosy magazine.

Her website at http://gloriastollkarn.com/ has some of her cover artwork and contact information.

Surely a worthy candidate for guest of honor at a pulp convention.

Saturday 15 August 2015

Stories from pulp authors at the Library of America


Raymond Chandler
Saturday Evening Post
October 14, 1939
Dashiell Hammett
Black Mask
October 1, 1923
Dashiell Hammett
Black Mask
October 15, 1923
Dashiell Hammett
Black Mask
October 15, 1923
David H. Keller
Weird Tales
January, 1929
H.P. Lovecraft
National Amateur
March 1922
Seabury Quinn
Weird Tales
July 1927
Francis Stevens
People’s Popular Magazine
February 10, 1919

The collections these stories were reprinted in are available as well:






Saturday 8 August 2015

Adventure's failed experiment in 1927

Earlier on this blog, we've talked about the change in Adventure magazine that took place in 1927 when new owners took over the magazine - the magazine changed from this look:



to this:


The contents of the magazine also changed, a books column was added, there was discussion and reviews of the best outdoor equipment etc. The fiction was kept intact, though.

We've discussed earlier whether this was the cause for Arthur Hoffman's departure from the magazine. Walker Martin (see the comments in the link above) feels that Hoffman was supportive of the move, but left because it failed to improve the business. I felt the new ownership was taking it in a direction that Hoffman didn't want, and that was part of the reason that Hoffman left.

Here's something that I found recently that might help - correspondence between Joseph Cox, the editor who succeeded Hoffman and Horace Kephart, an outdoors expert. Cox wanted Kephart to become a part of the Ask Adventure group of experts who answered readers' queries.

While doing so, he mentions that the new ownership wanted to make Adventure into the "trade journal of all the outdoors". That would probably have meant less fiction and more non-fiction. That change in direction, combined with the drop in readership, was (in my opinion), the reason for Hoffman's departure.

As we know, the magazine's circulation didn't improve and Adventure was back in pulp format in 1927. Joseph Cox left as editor in 1928 and the magazine went downhill until Harold Bloomfield took over as editor in 1934.